Progressive instances of militarized culture? [On peasant patrimonialism]

[Die Neue Zeit]

According to some sources, Chavez has attempted to integrate the military with the civilian population as much as possible, to the point of having it take on civilian tasks like food distribution, construction assistance, and transport. He has called this a "civil military union."

Critics have argued, however, that this has militarized civilian society. Placing a plethora of active and/or former military officers in the civil bureaucracy and/or in state enterprises boosts military culture in those institutions. Another angle of criticism is the excessive flexibility in the spectrum that stretches from Marx and Engels' "Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/03/24.htm) and "In future the armies shall be simultaneously labour armies, so that the troops shall not, as formerly, merely consume, but shall produce more than is necessary for their upkeep" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/03/24.htm) - on one end - all the way to the notorious "business empire" of enterprises run by the People's Liberation Army.

Another aspect of militarized culture is the language used in popular discourse. Military language such as "battalions," "platoons," "patrols," and "squadrons" have been used extensively, and in electoral discourse of all places.

So far, this recent example has been a progressive instance of militarized culture, a key aspect of peasant patrimonialism which, in turn, goes back to the ancient social contract exchanging

A) Protection from shepherds and their flocks gone astray, more heavily armed marauders, etc. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/march-rome-antecedent-t149756/index.html?p=2026731)
B) Execution of populist peasant vengeance against hated landlords, nobles, foreign merchants, etc. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/march-rome-antecedent-t149756/index.html?p=2026747)

With

A) Absolutism
B) Personality cults regarding the central authority providing the aforementioned protection and execution (http://www.revleft.com/vb/cuban-revolution-more-t157482/index.html?p=2164024).

Going back to just after middle antiquity, what were the other instances of militarized culture that were progressive?

[RED DAVE]

What is a day without a bizarre thread from DNZ?

RED DAVE

[Lenina Rosenweg]

As I understand the Songun philosophy of the "DPRK" regards the army as "an organic outgrowth of the working class".

A problem of Maoism and other peasant based revolutionary movements is that they are based on a military command structure. "Mass line struggle" not with standing, they are not democratic.This creates the space for all kinds of problems, from human rights abuses of FARC and the SL in Peru, to Prachanda's bourgeois movement in Nepal to, as DNZ pointed out ,the huge business empire of the PLA (common in other many other militaries of course, including the US)

I don't know how this can be seen as progressive.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

What is a day without a bizarre thread from DNZ?

RED DAVE

Sorry to go off topic, but I don't think that's actually a necessary comment.

I've agreed 100% with what you've had to say about DNZ up until now, but either you should confine yourself to criticising the content of his thread, or if you can't do that then you should just restrain yourself from actually posting. It's just not necessary, whatever one thinks of his politics.

[Rafiq]

What is a day without a bizarre thread from DNZ?

RED DAVE



There's nothing bizzare about these threads, perhaps you should focus more on actually understanding them instead of blindly criticizing them

[Die Neue Zeit]

This creates the space for all kinds of problems, from human rights abuses of FARC and the SL in Peru, to Prachanda's bourgeois movement in Nepal to, as DNZ pointed out, the huge business empire of the PLA (common in other many other militaries of course, including the US)

I don't know how this can be seen as progressive.

I don't think the US military has a business empire, because the whole military-industrial complex is comprised of private companies. The old Soviet defense industry, on the other hand, while having produced more than is necessary for the military's upkeep (as evidenced by arms exports), was too independent an institution or group of institutions, and if anything else perhaps it was the military that was subordinated to the defense industry.

The less objectionable ventures of the PLA's business empire remind me somewhat of the castra during the Roman Empire:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castra#Territory


The influence of a base extended far beyond its walls. The total land required for the maintenance of a permanent base was called its territoria. In it were located all the resources of nature and the terrain required by the base: pastures, woodlots, water sources, stone quarries, mines, exercise fields and attached villages.

The question is: What is "less objectionable"?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Many militaries have a large business network attached to them. Part of this is due to the fact that a military is a guaranteed market for non-productive parasitic production.

In China joining the army was and is an option for advancement for a peasant kid who either doesn't have the means to go to university or does not pass the extremely competitive university exam. Pay and condions for enlisted personnel in the PLA are not great but "serving" in the army provides a young person with a chance to live in a city for a few years and to be channeled into a halfway decent job after their army stint is over.

The PLA owns businesses who in turn own other business, who themselves own other businesses. I don't have statistics but the network is vast. Hu Jintao "downsized" this business empire somewhat over the past few years. so its not nearly as vast as it was.

Albert Speer wrote "Infiltration" , about the businesses empire that was being assembled by the Nazi SS in conquered areas of Eastern Europe.I'm not comparing the SS with the PLA or Nazi Germany with the PRC but there may have been similar dynamics at work.

The Egyptian army has a vast network of dependent businesses, probably for similar reasons as that of China. Undoubtebly Russia has something similar.

The US military industrial complex is also vast. It seems to be both more centralized and more decentralized than the Chinese model.There is the vast and politically powerful network of defense contractors-Northrup-Grumman, Boeing, Halliburton, KBR, etc.There is the revolving door where high ranking officers work for these companies. There is a network of private security agencies and police departments staffed by ex-military. There are the vast sums of Federal money spent on "defense" research with many private spinoffs in Silicon Valley and Route 128.There are evangelical Christian fundamentalist churches, often very extremist, closely tied in with the US military.

I don't know enough to compare the various military systems. That could make for an interesting discussion.

[the last donut of the night]

What is a day without a bizarre thread from DNZ?

RED DAVE

actually it's pretty interesting davey

[Die Neue Zeit]

In China joining the army was and is an option for advancement for a peasant kid who either doesn't have the means to go to university or does not pass the extremely competitive university exam. Pay and condions for enlisted personnel in the PLA are not great but "serving" in the army provides a young person with a chance to live in a city for a few years and to be channeled into a halfway decent job after their army stint is over.

In places where the proletariat is merely a demographic minority, I don't see anything wrong with socioeconomically "patriotic" petit-bourgeois governments having a standing army and aggressive enlistment agitation as a means of social mobility, going back to the certain times during the era of the Roman Republic.


I don't know enough to compare the various military systems. That could make for an interesting discussion.

Indeed.

[RED DAVE]

In places where the proletariat is merely a demographic minority, I don't see anything wrong with patriotic petit-bourgeois governments having a standing army and aggressive enlistment agitation as a means of social mobility, going back to the certain times during the era of the Roman Republic.In other words, you are for a class society where another social class, the petit-bourgeoisie, rules over the working class.

The Nepalese government, currently run by Maoists, is certainly a "patriotic petit-bourgeois government." Do you support it?

Is there any reason why you shouldn't be restricted for this as an enemy of the working class?

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

In other words, you are for a class society where another social class, the petit-bourgeoisie, rules over the working class.

The Nepalese government, currently run by Maoists, is certainly a "patriotic petit-bourgeois government." Do you support it?

The Nepalese government is hardly a socioeconomically "patriotic" petit-bourgeois government. The moment one lets in comprador petit-bourgeois elements and/or "national bourgeois" elements is when a petit-bourgeois government ceases being socioeconomically "patriotic."

[RED DAVE]

The Nepalese government is hardly a socioeconomically "patriotic" petit-bourgeois government. The moment one lets in comprador petit-bourgeois elements and/or "national bourgeois" elements is when a petit-bourgeois government ceases being socioeconomically "patriotic."And why would you call these elements "unpatriotic." They are, as a class, pursuing their interest in the same way that a "patriotic" petit-bourgeoisie would do it. The only difference is that they are getting some capital from abroad instead of sweating it all out of the proletariat like a "patriotic" petit-bourgeoisie would do.

What you are doing is saying that the petit-bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie can be divided politically and should these "patriotic" elements form a government, the Left should support it.

This is nonsense.

The petit-bourgeoisie is a divided class that can't form a stable government. In practice, all such "patriotic" governments will align themselves with the bourgeoisie and defeat the working class.

So, in fact, you are supporting a ruling class over the proletariat. Why shouldn't you be restricted for this?

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

And why would you call these elements "unpatriotic." They are, as a class, pursuing their interest in the same way that a "patriotic" petit=bourgeoisie would do it. The only difference is that they are getting some capital from abroad instead of sweating it all out of the proletariat like a "patriotic" petit-bourgeoisie would do.

What you are doing is saying that the petit-bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie can be divided politically and should these "patriotic" elements form a government, the Left should support it.

The petit-bourgeoisie in Third World countries can be divided into compradors and anti-bourgeois elements, the latter being socioeconomically "patriotic."

The bourgeoisie in the Third World, OTOH, can't really be socioeconomically "patriotic."

These are thus the two mistakes of Mao's fundamental Bloc of Four Classes. It really should have been Two-and-a-Half (politically independent proletariat, socioeconomically "patriotic" peasantry proper and rural petit-bourgeoisie, and socioeconomically "patriotic" urban petit-bourgeoisie, with the latter two in the driver's seat).


So, in fact, you are supporting a ruling class over the proletariat. Why shouldn't you be restricted for this?

As comrade Miles debated in an earlier thread but based on First World conditions, the working class isn't ready to rule. Back to the Third World subject, proletarian demographic minorities can only rule through terror and civil war, unlike the ruling class of Third World Caesarean Socialism.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Militaries in "Third World" countries have links with the petit bourgeois peasantry. The fate of Marshall Tukhachevsky is instructive in this regard.

Trotsky took a dim view of any military attempt to block or overthrow Stalin, such was not the Marxist method. There was a period around between 1923-24 when Trotsky could have led a military takeover. January 1924 when Antonov-Ovseyenko was removed as head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army, might have been the ideal time. As a Marxist however he regarded any such military route to power as counter productive from a class standpoint.


Trotsky had some interesting writing on this, I can't find it right now.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Trotsky took a dim view of any military attempt to block or overthrow Stalin, such was not the Marxist method.

But I'm referring to situations with socioeconomically "patriotic" petit-bourgeois elements taking the lead over proletarian demographic minorities and other classes, inspired by the original March on Rome and employing modern derivative forms like People's War, Focoism, and even Breakthrough Military Coups (http://revleft.com/vb/march-rome-antecedent-t149756/index.html).

[RED DAVE]

But I'm referring to situations with socioeconomically "patriotic" petit-bourgeois elements taking the lead over proletarian demographic minorities and other classes, inspired by the original March on Rome and employing modern derivative forms like People's War, Focoism, and even Breakthrough Military Coups (http://revleft.com/vb/march-rome-antecedent-t149756/index.html).In other words, you are referring to situations where a non-proletarian party takes state power and you are asserting, like a good little Maoist or Stalinist, that such a regime should be considered progressive when, in fact, these regimes are exploitative and repressive. (Think China, North Korea, Cuba, Nepal, etc.).


The petit-bourgeois in Third World countries can be divided into compradors and anti-bourgeois elements, the latter being socioeconomically "patriot.This is in direct contradiction to Marxism. What you are asserting is that (a) this political difference within the petit-bourgeoisie is a stable difference and (b) the working class should support a regime that is going to exploit and repress it.

RED DAVE

[Jose Gracchus]

As comrade Miles debated in an earlier thread but based on First World conditions, the working class isn't ready to rule. Back to the Third World subject, proletarian demographic minorities can only rule through terror and civil war, unlike the ruling class of Third World Caesarean Socialism.

What a little coward you are. Miles did not advocate petit bourgeois rule over the proletariat, just meaningful analysis of how, when, and by what means the proletariat prepares itself to assume power.

Not that this matters to you, since you go around quoting users constantly out-of-context (including me) in purported support of your dubious 'positions'.

[Small Geezer]

Fuck you guys know how to slap down DNZ's intellectual curiosity.

DNZ brings up something challenging to the method of Marxism. Let that method triumph and please don't call the comrade a 'little coward' in the process.


As I understand the Songun philosophy of the "DPRK" regards the army as "an organic outgrowth of the working class".

That sounds very revolutionary in the era of imperialism.

[Per Levy]

Fuck you guys know how to slap down DNZ's intellectual curiosity.

DNZ brings up something challenging to the method of Marxism. Let that method triumph and please don't call the comrade a 'little coward' in the process.

dnz advocates the rule of the petit-bourgeoisie over the proletariat, that this wont go well with most communists isnt suprising at all. btw this method did triumph and always led to the rule of the bourgeoisie.


That sounds very revolutionary in the era of imperialism.

actually that sounds much more like a justification for military dictatorship over the proletariat, and that is how it works in north korea.

[RED DAVE]

Fuck you guys know how to slap down DNZ's intellectual curiosity.What you call his "intellectual curiosity," some people call an "obsessive search" for bureaucratic alternatives to socialism. At root, he opposes working class control of society based on workplace organization.


DNZ brings up something challenging to the method of Marxism. Let that method triumph and please don't call the comrade a 'little coward' in the process.There is nothing "challenging to the method of Marxism" in his writing. He is constantly searching for some kind of top-down structure to replace socialism. The fact that he brings up Julius Caesar's march on Rome, over 2000 years ago, as a viable political model shows how far he is from the "method of Marxism."


That sounds very revolutionary in the era of imperialism.There is very little revolutionary in DNZ's method, unless you think reversion to the bureaucratic party exemplified by the German SPD, which sold out over WWI is revolutionary.

And, of course, it is clear that he supports class rule over the working class.

RED DAVE

[Small Geezer]

There is very little revolutionary in DNZ's method, unless you think reversion to the bureaucratic party exemplified by the German SPD, which sold out over WWI is revolutionary.I was talking about the armed working class, not DNZ's 'method'.

[Jose Gracchus]

DNZ brings up something challenging to the method of Marxism. Let that method triumph and please don't call the comrade a 'little coward' in the process.

No adult person could possibly say what DNZ did, having actually read Miles' positions on the petty bourgeois* and not know they were being deliberately and consciously misleading, and attempting to browbeat people with the personal authority of the admin. Its a slimy way of debating when you have no sources to provide, and it deserves to be called out for the intellectual cowardice it entails.

*(Ironically, Miles takes probably the strongest line against petit bourgeois privilege both inside capitalism and the workers' movement I have seen, and has characterized the anti-proletarian character of the privileged strata in the USSR as petty bourgeois; in fact he could more easily be construed as being the exact polar opposite of DNZ's position of being pro the rule of the "patriotic petty bourgeois" [whatever that could possibly mean]. I feel by calling out DNZ for intellectual cowardice and dishonesty here, I am actually being gracious. The alternative is that he is quite nearly illiterate and literally cannot understand what Miles wrote.)

[Lenina Rosenweg]

An army cannot pursue class interests of its own. the generals and top officer corps are embedded in the ruling class with perhaps ties with feudal landowners (as In Pakistan). Lower ranking commanders, colonels have traditionally experienced dissatisfaction and have been a traditional source of "Third Worldist" movements. They do not have working class consciousness.

A military centered Third Worldist revolution can only be bonapartism, usually left bonapartiss like Chavez but sometimes rightists.

[Jose Gracchus]

Aside: is it really meaningful to speak of Pakistani landlords as representing "feudal" relations?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Feudalistic peasant-landlord relationship subsumed under capitalism? That's the impression I got anyway. The world is entirely capitalist of course but there are remnants of earlier modes of production subsumed into capitalism.

What should one call plantation slave owners in the US South?

[Jose Gracchus]

Marx unambiguously called them capitalists. And that is a red herring from Pakistani relations, since they do not trade in chattel laborers. Jarius Banaji and others have regarded that 'sharecropping' and tenant relations must necessarily be brought into the overall rubric of capitalist production and relations (I highly recommend his book, Theory as History on this topic). The mode of production cannot be isolated down to a particular 'ideal type' of relations at the point of production.

[RED DAVE]

Marx unambiguously called them capitalists. And that is a red herring from Pakistani relations, since they do not trade in chattel laborers. Jarius Banaji and others have regarded that 'sharecropping' and tenant relations must necessarily be brought into the overall rubric of capitalist production and relations (I highly recommend his book, Theory as History on this topic). The mode of production cannot be isolated down to a particular 'ideal type' of relations at the point of production.This is also a favorite scarlet fish of Maoists, with their concept of "semi-feudalism." Since in has been the historic task of the bourgeoisie to overthrow feudalism, they use this as a justification for an alliance with the "native bourgeoisie," who are allegedly progressive, as opposed to the "comprador bourgeoisie," who are allied with imperialism, and are reactionary.

In fact, as we have seen in China and Nepal, both wings of the bourgeoisie are reactionary: they want capitalism.

DNZ goes a step further and alleges that there are even comprador and native petit-bourgeoisies. his viewpoint can be seen as a weird variation of Maoism: he wants the working class to subordinate itself to the native petit-bourgeoisie, whereas classical Maoism wants this subordination to be to the native bourgeoisie. It's all the same in the end: capitalism.

RED DAVE

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Okay. It sounds like I should read Banaji then. As I understand the British industrial bourgoise was able to co-opt, subsume,assimilate , take over the earlier landed aristoctacy. This process was not able to take place to the same degree elsewhere, hence we got bonapartist regimes in areas where industrial capital met with landed aristocracies such as the Prussian Junkers, Latin American landowners, etc. This is still capitalism of course. An example of the law of combined and uneven development.

I still have a lot to learn.

[Jose Gracchus]

Look it up under Kiev Communard's name; he has a link where you can download the whole book. :)

[Die Neue Zeit]

actually that sounds much more like a justification for military dictatorship over the proletariat, and that is how it works in north korea.

A comrade asked when I wrote all this Third World stuff months before if I'm sure this isn't some sort of cover for a military dictatorship. I responded that I'm against such a regime, but that various side aspects could be chopped off for sanitized use, again for Third World purposes.

For example, in my OP I wrote that "Placing a plethora of active and/or former military officers in the civil bureaucracy and/or in state enterprises boosts military culture in those institutions." I don't like placing active military officers, but I'm not against placing former but prestigious military officers in the civil bureaucracy and/or state enterprises.

I'm OK with using military language in electoral campaigns, a la Chavez.

I'm OK with the standing armed forces being sustained by nothing more than government budgets and some sort of modern-day castra setup as described earlier.

I'm OK with aggressive agitation for military enlistment as part of promoting social mobility.

Also, not all Breakthrough Military Coups bring about military dictatorships.

Factual absolutism would go against Urban Petit-Bourgeois Democratism, one of the central political components of the Third World suggestion of mine, so I'm merely for rendering the illusion of absolutism, tied to otherwise factual personality cults regarding the central authority. If the former military officers and their subordinates in the civil bureaucracy and/or state enterprises screw things up, they should receive the kind of treatment peasants demanded the monarch to exact upon hated nobles.


An army cannot pursue class interests of its own. the generals and top officer corps are embedded in the ruling class with perhaps ties with feudal landowners (as In Pakistan). Lower ranking commanders, colonels have traditionally experienced dissatisfaction and have been a traditional source of "Third Worldist" movements. They do not have working class consciousness.

A military centered Third Worldist revolution can only be bonapartism, usually left bonapartiss like Chavez but sometimes rightists.

And rarely, but not impossible, Caesarism as opposed to left or right Bonapartism (Gramsci).

Nevertheless, that's why I listed only Breakthrough Military Coups among the types of military coups to be considered (Guardian, Veto).


No adult person could possibly say what DNZ did, having actually read Miles' positions on the petty bourgeois* and not know they were being deliberately and consciously misleading, and attempting to browbeat people with the personal authority of the admin. Its a slimy way of debating when you have no sources to provide, and it deserves to be called out for the intellectual cowardice it entails.

*(Ironically, Miles takes probably the strongest line against petit bourgeois privilege both inside capitalism and the workers' movement I have seen, and has characterized the anti-proletarian character of the privileged strata in the USSR as petty bourgeois; in fact he could more easily be construed as being the exact polar opposite of DNZ's position of being pro the rule of the "patriotic petty bourgeois" [whatever that could possibly mean]. I feel by calling out DNZ for intellectual cowardice and dishonesty here, I am actually being gracious. The alternative is that he is quite nearly illiterate and literally cannot understand what Miles wrote.)

The comrade's focus is on the One Reactionary Mass in the most developed capitalist countries, not on the petit-bourgeoisie in the Third World, apart from mere worker-class politico-ideological independence.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This is also a favorite scarlet fish of Maoists, with their concept of "semi-feudalism."

[...]

DNZ goes a step further and alleges that there are even comprador and native petit-bourgeoisies. his viewpoint can be seen as a weird variation of Maoism: he wants the working class to subordinate itself to the native petit-bourgeoisie, whereas classical Maoism wants this subordination to be to the native bourgeoisie. It's all the same in the end: capitalism.

I go a step further in another way: I dump the concept of "semi-feudalism" and merely emphasize demographics. Your last sentence would be more accurate if it stated "state capitalism."

[Jose Gracchus]

The comrade's focus is on the One Reactionary Mass in the most developed capitalist countries, not on the petit-bourgeoisie in the Third World, apart from mere working-class politico-ideological independence.

Really? Is that why he characterized the USSR as "rule by petty bourgeois specialists" and criticized the incorporation of many of their number both prior to and after the revolution into the Bolshevik party?

How does Russia fail to be in the "Third World" circa 1917?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Really? Is that why he characterized the USSR as "rule by petty bourgeois specialists" and criticized the incorporation of many of their number both prior to and after the revolution into the Bolshevik party?

How does Russia fail to be in the "Third World" circa 1917?

He was criticizing the compromise of worker-class politico-ideological independence. However, I also have a question on the Russian situation myself:

Did Russia need Caesarism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/nep-did-russia-t146798/index.html)?

Here I outline a managed multi-party system (the political form in which worker-class political-ideological independence, Urban Petit-Bourgeois Democratism, and Peasant Patrimonialism can manifest itself) made up of at least four Bolshevik parties, each pandering to a specific class or social strata:


Did Russia need Caesarism (/= Bonapartism) so as not to degenerate like it did when socialist primitive accumulation was pursued? By this, I mean a system of "two Bolshevik parties" or more, each pandering to a specific class.

The Bolshevik peasant party, a Bolshevized version of scattered remnants of both SR parties, would be the Party of Order, would continue anti-bourgeois economic and political measures, and would centralize the executive:

http://vimeo.com/14808875


It's true that the peasantry is forced to decide between the fundamental classes. But it's not true that, because the peasantry is forced to decide between the fundamental classes, it cannot find political representation or act in support of autonomous peasant goals, that is to say, patriarchalism, the setting up of an absolute ruler, a cult of personality whether it's of Lenin or Saddam Hussein or Robert Mugabe.

Lenin himself would probably belong to this Party of Order. His fashion statement of wearing a Stalin-like khaki tunic later in his life instead of his more notable suit-vest-tie attire topped with a cap could have been a reflection of which class he was OK with as the dominant class in the Revolutionary-Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry, not to mention a sign of potential for walking in the footsteps of the Julius Caesar of people's history (http://www.revleft.com/vb/caesarism-marx-wrongi-t112185/index.html).

The Bolshevik urban petit-bourgeois party would fill the gap left behind by the Menshevik-Internationalists, who garnered support from (then-)petit-bourgeois intellectuals and notable working-class segments. It would be the Party of Liberty, and would be headed by the likes of Bukharin - whose Right Turn was more about the interests of the urban petit-bourgeoisie than "Peasants, Enrich Yourselves!"

The Bolshevik managerial party would be the smallest but most well-placed party on the bloc. It would be headed by the likes of Trotsky and Preobrazhensky, and perhaps even by the likes of Stalin and Molotov, too (given their coordinator-based industrialization turn).

The Bolshevik worker party would return to the original purpose of the old Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party: the DOTP. It would be headed more by the likes of Myasnikov than by the likes of Tomsky, unless the latter did a left turn of sorts.

[RED DAVE]

A comrade asked when I wrote all this Third World stuff months before if I'm sure this isn't some sort of cover for a military dictatorship. I responded that I'm against such a regime, but that various side aspects could be chopped off for sanitized use, again for Third World purposes.So if you take away the "military" and the "dictatorship" from a military dictatorship, what do you have?

It's still a regime over the working class. You are supporting capitalist class rule over the working class.


For example, in my OP I wrote that "Placing a plethora of active and/or former military officers in the civil bureaucracy and/or in state enterprises boosts military culture in those institutions." I don't like placing active military officers, but I'm not against placing former but prestigious military officers in the civil bureaucracy and/or state enterprises.It's still a regime over the working class. You are supporting capitalist class rule over the working class.


I'm OK with using military language in electoral campaigns, a la Chavez.

I'm OK with the standing armed forces being sustained by nothing more than government budgets and some sort of modern-day castra setup as described earlier.

I'm OK with aggressive agitation for military enlistment as part of promoting social mobility.

Also, not all Breakthrough Military Coups bring about military dictatorships.It's still a regime over the working class. You are supporting capitalist class rule over the working class.


Factual absolutism would go against Urban Petit-Bourgeois Democratism, one of the central political components of the Third World suggestion of mine, so I'm merely for rendering the illusion of absolutism, tied to otherwise factual personality cults regarding the central authority. If the former military officers and their subordinates in the civil bureaucracy and/or state enterprises screw things up, they should receive the kind of treatment peasants demanded the monarch to exact upon hated nobles.Gobbledy-gook. It's still a regime over the working class. You are supporting class rule over the working class.

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

So if you take away the "military" and the "dictatorship" from a military dictatorship, what do you have?

It's still a regime over the working class. You are supporting capitalist class rule over the working class.

You're implying that I support bourgeois class rule, which again is false.

Socioeconomically "Patriotic"/"National" Petit-Bourgeois state-capitalist rule over some proletarian demographic minority that could otherwise rule only by sheer undemocratic terror is, again, quite progressive. Otherwise, you're against democracy.

[RED DAVE]

It's still a regime over the working class. You are supporting capitalist class rule over the working class.
You're implying that I support bourgeois class rule, which again is false.Of course you support bourgeois class rule. You're willing to support a capitalist regime where the petit-bourgeoisie runs the state, which is basically stalinism, but where capitalist relations prevail in the workplace.


Socioeconomically "Patriotic"/"National" Petit-Bourgeois state-capitalist rule over some proletarian demographic minority that could otherwise rule only by sheer undemocratic terror is, again, quite progressive.What you are saying is that class rule over the working class, which is the meaning of your gobbledy-gook formula, is "progressive."


Otherwise, you're against democracy.Rule of a minority petit-bourgeois class is okay by you. But rule by a minority working class is not.

Is there any reason why you shouldn't be restricted as a supporter of capitalism?

ETA: This is post 5000 for me. :D

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

Rule of a minority petit-bourgeois class is okay by you. But rule by a minority working class is not.

Um, in much if not most of the Third World, the urban petit-bourgeoisie and small farmers (plus what's left of the hardcore peasantry) outnumber the proletariat, and that's before the debate on whether managerial types are part of this class or a coordinator class of their own. That's why I write of proletarian demographic minorities. I'm going for the most democratic outcome.

[RED DAVE]

Rule of a minority petit-bourgeois class is okay by you. But rule by a minority working class is not.
Um, in much if not most of the Third World, the urban petit-bourgeoisie and peasantry outnumber the proletariat, and that's before the debate on whether managerial types are part of this class or a coordinator class of their own.And ... ?


That's why I write of proletarian demographic minorities. I'm going for the most democratic outcome.What you are "going for" is capitalism. You are taking "democracy" as a historically abstract category and using it to oppose working class rule.

The Bolsheviks had quite a different view of the matter. The knew the working class was a minority class in Russia, they could count, but they also knew that the working class was the only class that could liberate Russia from capitalism and imperialism. You are opening the door to both.

You should get a job with the government in Nepal. The Maoists there will love you.

RED DAVE

[L.A.P.]

What is a day without a bizarre thread from DNZ?

RED DAVE

It's just creepy how much you enjoy stalking one user and making sure you're always the first to comment on their thread.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The Bolsheviks had quite a different view of the matter. The knew the working class was a minority class in Russia, they could count, but they also knew that the working class was the only class that could liberate Russia from capitalism and imperialism. You are opening the door to both.

You should get a job with the government in Nepal. The Maoists there will love you.

As I said above in my response to Jose, even Russia itself needed Caesarean Socialism, with a managed multi-party system comprised only of Bolshevik parties pandering to a specific class or strata, with the Bolshevik peasant / rural petit-bourgeois party being the most massive and influential among them, and with an aggressive personality cult around Lenin.

[RED DAVE]

It's just creepy how much you enjoy stalking one user and making sure you're always the first to comment on their thread.I highly recommend aerial intercourse with Easrth's large natural satellite.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

The Bolsheviks had quite a different view of the matter. The knew the working class was a minority class in Russia, they could count, but they also knew that the working class was the only class that could liberate Russia from capitalism and imperialism. You are opening the door to both.

You should get a job with the government in Nepal. The Maoists there will love you.
As I said above in my response to Jose, even Russia itself needed Caesarean Socialism, with a managed multi-party system comprised only of Bolshevik parties pandering to a specific class or strata, with the Bolshevik peasant party being the most massive and influential among them, and with an aggressive personality cult around Lenin.There is no such thing as "Caesarian Socialism." What you are advocating is out-and-out stalinism, including class rule over the working class.

RED DAVE

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

As I said above in my response to Jose, even Russia itself needed Caesarean Socialism, with a managed multi-party system comprised only of Bolshevik parties pandering to a specific class or strata, with the Bolshevik peasant party being the most massive and influential among them, and with an aggressive personality cult around Lenin.

Are you actually advocating an aggressive personality cult and pandering to the peasant class?

With the latter, how would the working class ever grow? :confused:

[S.Artesian]

Marx unambiguously called them capitalists. And that is a red herring from Pakistani relations, since they do not trade in chattel laborers. Jarius Banaji and others have regarded that 'sharecropping' and tenant relations must necessarily be brought into the overall rubric of capitalist production and relations (I highly recommend his book, Theory as History on this topic). The mode of production cannot be isolated down to a particular 'ideal type' of relations at the point of production.

True, Marx stated quite clearly that such slavery as existed in the South was inconceivable without industrial capitalism to support it.

Better question is, what do we call the Southern plantation owners after the Civil War, and after the defeat of radical Reconstruction, when their power was reestablished on the basis of sharecropper and "tenant" relations. And quite clearly the sharecropper and so-called tenant relations are a way of securing the labor of the former slaves for the plantation owner and through, in essence, a wage-form.

In fact, in certain states, sharecropper was stipulated as the designation of such relations specifically to avoid the issue of labor protections that might be afforded to other sections of the working class.

As for DNZ-- there's nothing "progressive" in what he's talking about. I mean, really and come on. Progressive peasant militarism? That isn't at all what's going in Venezuela, for many reasons, not the least of which is that Venezuela essentially has NO peasantry.

Integrating the army with the populace? Sure, that can be done-- by getting rid of the officer corps. Oh wait, that would take a revolution... and there is no longer a Soviet Union to protect any so-called patriotic petit-bourgeoisie and mitigate the counter-attack of the bourgeoisie, national and international.

What DNZ has produced here is yet another one of his bizarre, yes Red Dave hit it exactly, formulations, where everything works fine as long as we forget about the last 80-90 years.

.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Are you actually advocating an aggressive personality cult and pandering to the peasant class?

With the latter, how would the working class ever grow? :confused:

The former is part of the latter. Industrialization can chop the ranks of the petit-bourgeois small farmers and swell the ranks of the working class.

[RED DAVE]

The former is part of the latter. Industrialization can chop the ranks of the petit-bourgeois small farmers and swell the ranks of the working class.You are still talking about capitalism. Why is it that here on a revolutionary left-wing webiste, you are discussing capitalist development. Why are you engaged in planning for a society that ruthlessly exploits the working class? In what way, in the year 2011, is a capitalist society "progressive" (your words)?

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

There is no such thing as "Caesarian Socialism." What you are advocating is out-and-out stalinism, including class rule over the working class.


You are still talking about capitalism. Why is it that here on a revolutionary left-wing webiste, you are discussing capitalist development. Why are you engaged in planning for a society that ruthlessly exploits the working class? In what way, in the year 2011, is a capitalist society "progressive" (your words)?

What passed for "Stalinism" compromised the politico-ideological independence of the worker-class, although the Urban Petit-Bourgeois Democratism of restoring equal suffrage in the 1936 constitution and scrapping the underweighting of peasant votes should be commended.

State capitalist development, particularly "state socialist" development, can be way more progressive than typical capitalist (under-)development.

And now S. Artesian is confused on the class nature of small tenant farmers and sharecroppers.

[Jose Gracchus]

U.S. sharecroppers were particularly constrained proletarians. Did Soviet proletarians stop being proletarians because of the logbooks, movement restriction, and punitive regime?

[RED DAVE]

What you are advocating is out-and-out stalinism, including class rule over the working class.
What passed for "Stalinism" compromised the politico-ideological independence of the worker-class, although the Urban Petit-Bourgeois Democratism of restoring equal suffrage in the 1936 constitution and scrapping the underweighting of peasant votes should be commended.

State capitalist development, particularly "state socialist" development, can be way more progressive than typical capitalist (under-)development.So you're a stalinist. Why not just be honest and admit it?

RED DAVE

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The former is part of the latter. Industrialization can chop the ranks of the petit-bourgeois small farmers and swell the ranks of the working class.

I cannot actually believe you're arguing for (which goes far beyond excusing historical examples of) a future personality cult.

I mean, do you comprehend what you're actually arguing for?

[Die Neue Zeit]

U.S. sharecroppers were particularly constrained proletarians. Did Soviet proletarians stop being proletarians because of the logbooks, movement restriction, and punitive regime?

Actually, sharecroppers are petit-bourgeois because of the leasehold arrangements over the ownership and use of land. Contrast leasehold arrangements with rental tenure.


I cannot actually believe you're arguing for (which goes far beyond excusing historical examples of) a future personality cult.

I mean, do you comprehend what you're actually arguing for?

Don't blame me. That's what's historically associated with peasant-supported regimes.

[RED DAVE]

Let's not get side-tracked too far.

None of this stuff about peasants, sharecroppers, etc., is the issue. The issue is that DNZ supports regimes that rule over the working class where there is an alternative: working class regimes operating under permanent revolution. His rejection of permanent revolution leads you right into stalinism and the support of overtly capitalist regimes. Or, when he gets exposed, he tries to retreat into bullshit arguments about history.

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

Right, I'm confused, because after all, once upon a time in 17th, 18th, and early 19th century England, tenants were actually small capitalist farmers. Sure, I'm confused.

DNZ doesn't know what he's talking about, but why would anyone find that surprising given the fact that he's made a virtual career, achieved a cult status, for not knowing what he's talking about? Ever. About anything.

I would suggest that anyone who believes black sharecroppers in the Redemptionist South were "petit-bourgeois" actually look at the labor relations, and the history of the establishment of those relations, where the land was "awarded" simply as a way of tethering the labor force to the plantation production system, binding them tightly through debt, and reducing the costs of keeping that labor force available year round.

[Jose Gracchus]

The IWW had the right idea on black sharecroppers. Organize as proletarians. And because via this, they were the main bridge to the possibility of an organized and unified American proletariat, they suffered the most heavy repression of the era.

But whatever, this is a historical question. The American Southern experience is one with its own particularities, and one cannot just casually 'group' all poor agricultural labor ahistorically. DNZ, you always deal in abstracts and generalities, rather than ever engaging a particular place and its material characteristics, its own historical background, and in the process I think you avoid any serious challenge to your slogans (I say slogans, because without any grasp toward particular places, particular peasantries, particular agricultural regimes, I do not think it can even claim to be 'theory'). American sharecroppers were proletarians; read Banaji on this. A whole section of the book is dedicated to the question of backward agricultural regimes and the ubiquitous claims of extant 'peasantry' or worse yet 'feudalism'(!).

[Die Neue Zeit]

However, in practice, large numbers of sharecroppers had to supplement their income from farming with labor, and it frequently occurred that a family would be denied money for sharecropping and would be put off the land to become workers. It was a miserable like on the border between the working class and the petit-bougeoisie depending on the state of the agricultural sector.

I just wanted to make things very simple. These people are proletarians only insofar as their income supplements from labour outweighed the closer-to-home sharecropping income. The sharecropping activity and income derived from it is entirely petit-bourgeois.

The "agrarian socialism/populism" of the early 20th century that combined labour issues reflected this more complex reality. Jose, I believe my previous sentence just now addresses your "particular place and its material characteristics" concern.

[S.Artesian]

You don't know what you are talking about; sharecropping did not provide them with anything near subsistence. They were a labor force for the plantation owner. The black sharecroppers of the post-Reconstruction South were not configured as a class that would pay part of its crop to the plantation owner as rent, but rather as a rural proletariat tethered by law and debt to the land. The "share" was a cover.

Read a little bit, why don't you about the post Reconstruction Southern agriculture?

You want to make things simple? No, you want to make relations fit your self-glorifying "theories." What a waste of time.

[Die Neue Zeit]

How are they different from the so-called "urban peasantry" in developing countries (http://www.revleft.com/vb/urban-peasantry-developing-t154763/index.html)? They're indebted, too:


This would not have been made possible without micro finance. In the cities, there are those petit-bourgeois elements under the heavy modern debt peonage (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20709.htm) of higher-interest loans of a secured and unsecured nature, and moreover have been financed / leveraged outside the traditional channels (big banks). Such debt peonage evokes the feudal debt peonage of the peasantry and also the condition of small tenant farmers (not to mention earlier periods where certain strong leaders outside clueless slave riots and revolts re. self-governance were the only ones who addressed debt relief). The indebted urban business risk is akin to the risk borne by sharecroppers, to say nothing of the role of interested but scarce vulture capitalists (oops, I meant "venture capitalists"). Moreover, most if not all of these petit-bourgeois elements either don't hire labour for profit or resort to under-the-table but irregular labour transactions.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

DNZ, you lost all credibility on this topic when you stated your support for an aggressive personality cult. You'd have been one of those bureaucratic idiots that glorified the great Lenin and Stalin in the USSR, wouldn't you? :rolleyes:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Again, that's what you get with peasant-supported regimes. It also serves as a bulwark against the influence of organized religion, especially non-indigenous ones.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

So don't support a peasant-supported regime if it's gonna lead to that, you complete and utter tool.

What is the point in getting rid of the religion of 'God' to replace it with the religion of *insert other being/person*? Are you really that dense? Fuck off.

[Comrade-Z]

Part of what might be throwing people off about DNZ's points in this thread is that DNZ is addressing a situation that really is not relevant for the advanced capitalist countries today (the theoretical situation where the proletariat is in the vast minority and where it cannot possibly rule).

What makes DNZ's threads sound bizarre is that his language and style of writing often seem to imply that he is approaching these questions as a matter of current strategy for us in the advanced capitalist countries, despite the fact that he also states very clearly that he is addressing less developed societies only. I think this is just a matter of his style of writing. So if his politics sound 90 years behind, that is because he is addressing societies that are 90 years behind, and he is trying to show how they could pull of their own SPD or Stalinist Soviet Union, except marginally better.

Let's be clear about our assumptions. Many leftists assume that it was a realistic possibility for the working class in Russia to rule in 1917. What they base this on in hindsight, knowing that the world revolution was not following in tow, I have no idea.

In a way, the Mensheviks were more realistic and consistent in arguing that the working class would not be able to rule Russia. However, that's still no reason to get in bed with some inept bourgeois ministers determined to continue waging a senseless war for access to the Straits. What you do is topple the inept bourgeois government and institute a competent bourgeois government.

What are the ideal characteristics of a competent bourgeois government?
*They will create a political/legal environment to develop the forces of production as rapidly as possible.
*They will focus on providing the working class with basic quality of life services and infrastructure.
*They will penalize bourgeois consumption and push the bourgeoisie as far as possible towards being mere managers of capital. That is to say, if Owner John Q. Smith nominally earns $500 million a year, but must (for various reasons...such as the competitiveness of the market, or government regulations) plow $499.95 million of that back into production as capital, leaving only a comparatively modest $50,000 for himself to personally consume, then this hypothetical owner is approaching the situation where he is effectively nothing more than a paid manager of a state-run corporation earning a salary of $50,000 a year for his work of intelligently directing capital to where it can do the most to develop the state-run corporation and the overall national (and indirectly, global) capitalism.

Now, the reason that this is only a "hypothetical" situation is because capitalists would scream to high heaven if they had to endure the level of competition and/or regulations necessary to bring this situation about where they could only consume $50,000 of their yearly earnings. The capitalists would inevitably use their control over the means of production to:
1. Organize cartels to restrict competition among capitalists and allow each other to personally consume more of their earnings on luxury goods and services, political advertising (funding thinktanks and such), and bribing government (directly or indirectly) to give them more advantages in the future.
2. Extort the government into easing regulations.

And is this not exactly what happened to the Soviet Union? At first you had a state-capitalism where even the highest levels of government officials (who were managing the state as essentially one giant corporation) were personally living and consuming goods and services at only a marginally higher level than the rest of the population. At this point, such officials in effect constituted a "competent bourgeoisie" that was rapidly developing the country.

As time went on, however, these government officials (and especially their sons) began to think in a way more corresponding to their social role--like capitalists. Even ferocious and despotic ideological vigilance could not halt this inevitable trend.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that maybe the Soviet Union started functioning so badly in the 1980s because government managers were essentially engaging in a vast, uncoordinated, subtly-effected slowdown strike? They basically felt like, "We do everything that the capitalists in the other countries do, except we don't get nearly the opportunity for personal consumption and independence of action that they do, so until you make us into the de jure capitalists that we de facto already are, we're gonna make this economic system run like shit. We ain't gonna give a shit. We're gonna be corrupt as hell. We're gonna do nepotistic favors. We're gonna start organizing underground cartels and oligarchies. We're gonna skirt around fulfilling our production quotas or do the most half-assed job that will get us by. We're gonna lie, cheat, and steal. We're gonna falsify our records, or just not give a shit, so the central planners aren't going to have a fucking clue what's going on. And we're gonna do all of this until we get properly accorded with the privileges of proper capitalists."

In Marx's day, fierce competition kept capitalists honest. They had to plow most of their earnings back into production. This was still a time when the earnest, hardworking entrepreneurial capitalist with the Protestant work-ethic and the miserly budget sheet contrasted favorably with the profligate and irresponsible nobility in decay. New technological breakthroughs and the advent of entirely new industries meant that new entries to these new markets were all starting off at the same starting line. While there were corporations, there were hardly yet those entities like U.S. Steel, I.G. Farben, Standard Oil, and other cartels that could really effectively restrict competition among capitalists. Accordingly, capitalists appeared to be naturally "progressive." They had to be to survive in that time, when their internal political and economic organization was still in its infancy.

Now, I'm not so sure. It seems to me that, in late(r)-capitalism where there are not so many brand-new industries offering a level playing-field to new entries in the market, where cartels and monopoly capital effectively run the show, it's not necessarily the case that we're always going to get a bourgeoisie that is constrained to be progressive and that is constrained to elect competent servants in the State that farsightedly look out for the good functioning of capitalism as a whole. You've got short-sighted capitalist cliques (like the military-industrial complex, or the financial "industry") that manage to get elected politicians who agree to particularly favor that clique of the capitalist class, at the expense, to a certain extent, of the overall health of capitalism. In such times, you get capitalists outside of the ruling clique, as well as petty-bourgeois middle-class populist radicals, who argue for a fairer, more progressive, better-functioning capitalism (which, I hate to break it to you, looks like what is primarily motivating Occupy Wall Street at the present moment, some radical leftist agitators notwithstanding).

We come back to the question of, "Is working class rule possible right now?" If it isn't, then there's a case to be made to put pressure on the State to look out more farsightedly for the interests of the capitalist class and capitalism as a whole, so that capitalism can continue revolutionizing the forces of production and bring about the preconditions for working class rule and communism as quickly as possible--and to do this without any illusions about what we are doing--that we are calling for more intelligent exploitation of ourselves, and thereby more intelligent accumulation of capital and development of the means of production.

As it so happens, I think that working class rule in the advanced capitalist countries is indeed a possibility, and that changes the question entirely. In that context, supporting a "more intelligent" exploitation of ourselves is strictly reactionary.

But let's go back to the early Soviet Union. Was working class rule possible there at that time? I think the answer is an obvious NO, regardless of what Trotskyists might like to conjure up under the magical incantation of "permanent revolution."

Lenin himself saw that their only option by 1921 would be to do state-capitalism better than the capitalists themselves. Primitive accumulation...industrialization...it was not going to look pretty, just as any early stage of capitalist development hadn't looked pretty in any country. The best the Bolsheviks could do would be to, as it were, "midwife" the transition to, and development of, capitalism in the most intelligent way possible--in a way that was least wasteful on funding the personal consumption habits of individual capitalists--in a way that in effect substituted salaried "capital managers" for capitalists...for a time. I don't fault the Bolsheviks for trying to do this.

What I fault the Bolsheviks for are three things:
1. Failing, to a certain extent, at being a competent capitalist class. (The famine, Lysenkoism...stuff that retarded the development of Soviet capitalism).
2. Dressing up their (necessarily brutal) state-capitalism as "socialism" or "communism" and thereby sullying the communist project in the advanced capitalist countries.
3. Hijacking the international communist movement for the benefit of their state-capitalism (the 3rd International). Their state-capitalism, while important, was by no means more important than any other country's capitalist development, and hardly justified hijacking the entire mainstream international communist movement.

Would Trotsky, or Trotskyists, have been any better if they had been in control of the Soviet Union? Perhaps on point 3...although you never know. You can say that you wouldn't have gone for "Socialism in One Country," but if you had been in power and had been responsible for the development of the Soviet Union's state-capitalism, it would have been difficult to resist the temptation to abuse the international communist movement for your country's own political/economic/diplomatic interests.

Economically, what's funny is that, if it had been Trotsky in power rather than Stalin, the Soviet Union would have likely gone down the same road in the 1930s. The fundamental question was, "Who was going to pay the price for primitive accumulation?" Trotsky, as well as Stalin, leaned towards making the peasantry pay the lion's share, and relatively sparing the urban proletariat. Bukharin leaned the other way, towards letting the peasantry off easy and leaning more on the urban proletariat (by basically extending NEP indefinitely...which was really the orthodox Bolshevik position all the way through up until Lenin's death. For all Lenin on his deathbed knew, indefinite NEP was what to reasonably expect for the foreseeable future).

(By the way, I should also mention that part of primitive accumulation also ended up getting borne by virtual slaves in the Gulag system, although their activities were usually of marginal significance to the rest of the economy).

In a country that was still predominantly peasant, Bukharin's strategy was less politically volatile. It would have required less of a terror...some, perhaps, to deal with the understandably pissed off urban proletariat, but not as much as was needed to enforce collectivization on the peasants. It would have also likely led to the overt reinstatement of normal capitalist property relations, as instead of having a small aspiring capitalist class embedded in the Soviet bureaucracy, you would have very quickly developed a huge aspiring capitalist class in the form of the "kulak" peasantry. Whether that justifies turning away from Bukharin's strategy depends on how much of a difference you think it makes having de jure capitalists with more personal consumption and independence from the state vs. merely de facto capitalists (party apparatchiks) with less personal consumption and independence running things.

And if you're wondering why collectivization needed to be the logical endpoint of the decision to squeeze the peasants, you should read "An Economic History of the Soviet Union" by Maurice Dobb. It goes into the "scissors crisis," which was basically a problem that the Bolsheviks faced in the late 1920s when they tried to engineer the terms of trade to be in favor of the urban proletariat and urban industry and against the peasantry (in order to make the peasantry pay for primitive accumulation, essentially). Basically, the Bolsheviks wanted to make the peasants sell their grain for low prices and buy industrial goods for high prices. In response, the peasants revolted by withholding grain and turning back to making handicrafts in the household, which completely dried up the Soviet countryside as a market for the Soviet Union's urban industrial goods. The Bolsheviks essentially had to force the peasants to sell their grain cheaply and buy industrial goods dearly at gunpoint...and the collective farm under state supervision was the easiest and most logical institution in which to systematically get that done. And concomitant with what was essentially a civil war against the peasantry, you needed a warlike ideological mobilization among the government's allies in order to see this policy through--the Party and the urban proletariat. This explains the ramping up of ideological intensity to a fever pitch in the early 1930s.

Assuming that Trotsky had remained true to his original intention to relatively spare the urban proletariat, relatively squeeze the peasantry, and emphasize industrialization, then he would have had little choice but to follow this path as well...regardless of whatever democratic impulses he might have felt in his heart of hearts.

As for the cult of personality, I doubt it was engineered as a replacement and a way to gently wean the religious-minded from religion, as DNZ implies, although it might have essentially had this effect somewhat (I have no idea...you have to admit that religion is very weak in all of the modern post-Soviet countries. It's certainly easier to discredit the idea of leader worship by attempting to worship a human and all-too obviously fallible leader than an evidentially-unassailable metaphysical one).

In any case, I've read some convincing articles arguing that the cult of personality was, to a certain extent, a bottom-up phenomenon from the grassroots of the Party that Stalin, of course, opportunistically utilized, but not necessarily engineered. Honestly, considering the religious backgrounds of the Soviet citizens of the time, and the fact that a lot of workers and party members were only two steps recently removed from the peasant village, with all of the ideological backwardness implied, I would have been surprised if there hadn't been a cult of personality...Stalin probably would have had to vehemently, repeatedly, and genuinely (without a wink and a nod) object to such a thing to prevent it. Of course, he did not.

[S.Artesian]

What makes DNZ's posts noxious is that his elaborate theories are justifications, after the fact, for the defeat of actual efforts toward proletarian revolution in exactly those countries which some mistakenly identify as "90 years behind." In reality they are inextricably bound up, bound in the web of advanced capitalism, or advancing capitalism as China, Vietnam, Bolivia, Angola, were and are.

[Devrim]

Part of what might be throwing people off about DNZ's points in this thread is that DNZ is addressing a situation that really is not relevant for the advanced capitalist countries today (the theoretical situation where the proletariat is in the vast minority and where it cannot possibly rule).

It is certainly an important point. However, we need to understand. How the working class relates to other classes in countries where it is a minority is an important question. However, we should understand what we are talking about, and not live in myths of the so-called 'third world'.

If you look at the three major countries in the Middle East today, Egypt, Turkey, and Iran, all of them have industrial (not counting important sectors of workers in the 'service sector' who are proletarians such as railway workers, postmen, and teachers) working classes comprising of about 40% of the working population, which is actually about double that of 'the advanced capitalist countries'.

The myth of a peasant third world is exactly that, a myth.

Yes, there are still some countries with a peasant majority, including important countries such as India, but I think that the trend of proletarianisation is very rapid across the world.


What makes DNZ's threads sound bizarre is that his language and style of writing often seem to imply that he is approaching these questions as a matter of current strategy for us in the advanced capitalist countries, despite the fact that he also states very clearly that he is addressing less developed societies only. I think this is just a matter of his style of writing. So if his politics sound 90 years behind, that is because he is addressing societies that are 90 years behind,

Except that he isn't addressing the reality of the situation at all. The idea that countries are '90 years behind' does not relate in any way to class composition in these countries.

Devrim

[Reznov]

Very interesting, so you guys would consider countries like Venezuela and China to be heavily militarized and integrated into society of these countries?

What about countries like Nazi Germany, or the Roman Empire?

Which civilization in history would you say was most militarized and integrated into their society's culture?

[Die Neue Zeit]

So don't support a peasant-supported regime if it's gonna lead to that, you complete and utter tool.

What is the point in getting rid of the religion of 'God' to replace it with the religion of *insert other being/person*? Are you really that dense? Fuck off.

Au contraire (and this one's for workers): http://www.revleft.com/vb/necessary-humorous-rehabilitation-t162045/index.html

What's your solution to the spontaneous development of Lenin's personality cult amongst the peasantry, starting just after the failed assassination attempt on him?

"We have no king but [Julius] Caesar!" (I know, he was assassinated before this was chanted :D )

Oh, and to reinforce my earlier point on sharecropping as a petit-bourgeois function: in many national income tax laws, sharecroppers are entitled to deduct farm operating expenses from their income. So this, in addition to the earlier note on leasehold arrangements, makes this function petit-bourgeois and not proletarian.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Part of what might be throwing people off about DNZ's points in this thread is that DNZ is addressing a situation that really is not relevant for the advanced capitalist countries today (the theoretical situation where the proletariat is in the vast minority and where it cannot possibly rule).

What makes DNZ's threads sound bizarre is that his language and style of writing often seem to imply that he is approaching these questions as a matter of current strategy for us in the advanced capitalist countries, despite the fact that he also states very clearly that he is addressing less developed societies only. I think this is just a matter of his style of writing. So if his politics sound 90 years behind, that is because he is addressing societies that are 90 years behind, and he is trying to show how they could pull of their own SPD or Stalinist Soviet Union, except marginally better.

Comrade, my posts on the SPD model are explicitly about strategy for the most developed capitalist countries. I do my very best to separate SPD/USPD-talk, Kautskyan/ortho-Marxist revolutionary strategy, etc. from the Third World Caesarean Socialism for the Third World.


In a way, the Mensheviks were more realistic and consistent in arguing that the working class would not be able to rule Russia. However, that's still no reason to get in bed with some inept bourgeois ministers determined to continue waging a senseless war for access to the Straits. What you do is topple the inept bourgeois government and institute a competent bourgeois government.

[...]

*They will penalize bourgeois consumption and push the bourgeoisie as far as possible towards being mere managers of capital. That is to say, if Owner John Q. Smith nominally earns $500 million a year, but must (for various reasons...such as the competitiveness of the market, or government regulations) plow $499.95 million of that back into production as capital, leaving only a comparatively modest $50,000 for himself to personally consume, then this hypothetical owner is approaching the situation where he is effectively nothing more than a paid manager of a state-run corporation earning a salary of $50,000 a year for his work of intelligently directing capital to where it can do the most to develop the state-run corporation and the overall national (and indirectly, global) capitalism.

[...]

In Marx's day, fierce competition kept capitalists honest. They had to plow most of their earnings back into production. This was still a time when the earnest, hardworking entrepreneurial capitalist with the Protestant work-ethic and the miserly budget sheet contrasted favorably with the profligate and irresponsible nobility in decay. New technological breakthroughs and the advent of entirely new industries meant that new entries to these new markets were all starting off at the same starting line. While there were corporations, there were hardly yet those entities like U.S. Steel, I.G. Farben, Standard Oil, and other cartels that could really effectively restrict competition among capitalists. Accordingly, capitalists appeared to be naturally "progressive." They had to be to survive in that time, when their internal political and economic organization was still in its infancy.

What I am saying is that Third World countries should just go all the way and have a Bloc of Proletarians, Proletarii (unproductive labour like those in the arms industry), Proper Lumpenproletarians (like prostitutes where illegal), Coordinators (enterprise-level managers of labour and civil-bureaucratic managers of capital), and "National"/"Patriotic" Petit-Bourgeoisie (tenant farmers, sharecroppers, shopkeepers, other small business owners, socially productive self-employed, etc.) administer a more statist State Capitalism to the point of some kind of State Socialism.

Contrast the patriots to the comprador Petit-Bourgeoisie in the Venezuelan situation, as noted a couple of days ago:

Venezuelan Diaspora Booms Under Chávez (http://www.revleft.com/vb/comprador-petit-bourgeoisie-t162949/index.html)

Now:


We come back to the question of, "Is working class rule possible right now?" If it isn't, then there's a case to be made to put pressure on the State to look out more farsightedly for the interests of the capitalist class and capitalism as a whole, so that capitalism can continue revolutionizing the forces of production and bring about the preconditions for working class rule and communism as quickly as possible--and to do this without any illusions about what we are doing--that we are calling for more intelligent exploitation of ourselves, and thereby more intelligent accumulation of capital and development of the means of production.

[...]

Lenin himself saw that their only option by 1921 would be to do state-capitalism better than the capitalists themselves. Primitive accumulation...industrialization...it was not going to look pretty, just as any early stage of capitalist development hadn't looked pretty in any country. The best the Bolsheviks could do would be to, as it were, "midwife" the transition to, and development of, capitalism in the most intelligent way possible--in a way that was least wasteful on funding the personal consumption habits of individual capitalists--in a way that in effect substituted salaried "capital managers" for capitalists...for a time. I don't fault the Bolsheviks for trying to do this.

Why only "for a time" and not for good as I have suggested? Capitalist production can develop without a capitalist class (and I don't share your state-capitalist POV re. the Soviet Union under Stalin and after), and doing so is the only way to minimize or eliminate "luxury goods and services, political advertising (funding thinktanks and such), and bribing government (directly or indirectly)" (your words).


Trotsky, as well as Stalin, leaned towards making the peasantry pay the lion's share, and relatively sparing the urban proletariat. Bukharin leaned the other way, towards letting the peasantry off easy and leaning more on the urban proletariat (by basically extending NEP indefinitely...which was really the orthodox Bolshevik position all the way through up until Lenin's death. For all Lenin on his deathbed knew, indefinite NEP was what to reasonably expect for the foreseeable future).

I don't think Stalin was interested in relatively sparing the urban proletariat. The depression of real wages, the devaluation of real savings, etc. are hardly proletarian interests. Neither Trotsky nor Stalin were for forced sovkhozization, the only policy that could have prevented the aforementioned depression and devaluation.


It is certainly an important point. However, we need to understand. How the working class relates to other classes in countries where it is a minority is an important question. However, we should understand what we are talking about, and not live in myths of the so-called 'third world'.

If you look at the three major countries in the Middle East today, Egypt, Turkey, and Iran, all of them have industrial (not counting important sectors of workers in the 'service sector' who are proletarians such as railway workers, postmen, and teachers) working classes comprising of about 40% of the working population, which is actually about double that of 'the advanced capitalist countries'.

The myth of a peasant third world is exactly that, a myth.

Yes, there are still some countries with a peasant majority, including important countries such as India, but I think that the trend of proletarianisation is very rapid across the world.

You discount the huge numbers of urban petit-bourgeoisie. Those huge numbers aren't a "myth." The fact is that the proletariat, "industrial" and/or otherwise, is still a demographic minority (albeit a huge one) in more Third World countries than you realize, and "workers revolution" there would be blatantly undemocratic in terms of violating things like equal suffrage.

[Comrade-Z]

Comrade, my posts on the SPD model are explicitly about strategy for the most developed capitalist countries.

Oh.......oi vey.


Why only "for a time" and not for good as I have suggested?

Because having the same social role as capitalists (controlling the surplus value extracted from wage labor) without having the usual privileges of capitalists made Soviet apparatchiks conscious of their position as capitalists who were essentially get a raw deal compared to the rest of the world, and it made them eventually chafe at their restrictions and pursue the overthrow of these restrictions.

This is why I think "capitalism without capitalists" might be useful to a developing country, but is temporary at best, and cannot lead towards working class rule except insofar as it does very indirectly by developing capitalism. Because, if you have capitalism, you automatically have capitalists...even if they are called something else and don't have the usual privileges in your system. But they share enough of the characteristics of usual capitalists to mold their outlook to be pro-capitalism over time.


What I am saying is that Third World countries should just go all the way and have a Bloc of Proletarians, Proletarii (unproductive labour like those in the arms industry), Proper Lumpenproletarians (like prostitutes where illegal), Coordinators (enterprise-level managers of labour and civil-bureaucratic managers of capital), and "National"/"Patriotic" Petit-Bourgeoisie (tenant farmers, sharecroppers, shopkeepers, other small business owners, socially productive self-employed, etc.) administer a more statist State Capitalism to the point of some kind of State Socialism.

I agree with this strategy, but it's not going to lead towards greater State Socialism over time, but rather, farther away from it. The national/patriotic petit-bourgeoisie will only support this state-capitalism if it comes as the price of also getting a landed aristocracy and/or imperialism off their backs. Once that's achieved, the national/patriotic petit-bourgeoisie will chafe at this state-capitalism and campaign incessantly for the institution of just regular capitalism that will give them more "freedom" to use their capital to their advantage.

The case is even more dire with the coordinators. At first they would probably be a mix of upwardly-mobile workers and bourgeois experts (as in the USSR). At first the upwardly-mobile workers will support the state-capitalism, but over time (several decades) they and their sons will come to set their eyes on an even larger prize. Instead of being mere coordinators, they'll dream of being independent capitalists, and they'll use their power over the economic process to gradually make that happen.

So, while I think state-capitalism/"state-socialism" can be a useful development strategy, you're still going to need a second revolution--a thoroughly proletarian communist one--in all cases. State-capitalism/"State-Socialism" is not the transition from capitalism to communism, but rather from under-developed capitalism to developed capitalism.

[Devrim]

You discount the huge numbers of urban petit-bourgeoisie. Those huge numbers aren't a "myth." The fact is that the proletariat, "industrial" and/or otherwise, is still a demographic minority (albeit a huge one) in more Third World countries than you realize, and "workers revolution" there would be blatantly undemocratic in terms of violating things like equal suffrage.

What 'huge numbers of urban petit-bourgeoisie'? There is no 'third world' country where the urban petit bourgeoisie outnumbers the working class. In countries where the working class is not a majority it is because of the weight of the peasantry.

Please provide some evidence to back up your point about 'the huge numbers of urban petit-bourgeoisie'.

Devrim

[Die Neue Zeit]

I agree with this strategy, but it's not going to lead towards greater State Socialism over time, but rather, farther away from it. The national/patriotic petit-bourgeoisie will only support this state-capitalism if it comes as the price of also getting a landed aristocracy and/or imperialism off their backs. Once that's achieved, the national/patriotic petit-bourgeoisie will chafe at this state-capitalism and campaign incessantly for the institution of just regular capitalism that will give them more "freedom" to use their capital to their advantage.

The case is even more dire with the coordinators. At first they would probably be a mix of upwardly-mobile workers and bourgeois experts (as in the USSR). At first the upwardly-mobile workers will support the state-capitalism, but over time (several decades) they and their sons will come to set their eyes on an even larger prize. Instead of being mere coordinators, they'll dream of being independent capitalists, and they'll use their power over the economic process to gradually make that happen.

So, while I think state-capitalism/"state-socialism" can be a useful development strategy, you're still going to need a second revolution--a thoroughly proletarian communist one--in all cases. State-capitalism/"State-Socialism" is not the transition from capitalism to communism, but rather from under-developed capitalism to developed capitalism.

I said before that the real question is how much the state-capitalist development in Third World Caesarean Socialism (TWCS) can overcome "national"/"patriotic" petit-bourgeois (both urban and rural) and coordinator resistance, policy-wise, to mass proletarianization. Once there's a proletarian demographic majority, TWCS has exhausted its progressive role and the working-class politico-ideological independence that was once an ally will now be a threat.


What 'huge numbers of urban petit-bourgeoisie'? There is no 'third world' country where the urban petit bourgeoisie outnumbers the working class. In countries where the working class is not a majority it is because of the weight of the peasantry.

Please provide some evidence to back up your point about 'the huge numbers of urban petit-bourgeoisie'.

In many cases the peasantry and rural petit-bourgeoisie alone outnumber the proletariat. In others they and the urban petit-bourgeoisie outnumber the proletariat. Post #57 above explains the situation of the urban petit-bourgeoisie. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/progressive-instances-militarized-t162086/index.html?p=2266160)

[S.Artesian]

The national/patriotic petit-bourgeoisie will only support this state-capitalism if it comes as the price of also getting a landed aristocracy and/or imperialism off their backs.

Really? Can you provide evidence of a "national/petit bourgeoisie" supporting this version of "state-capitalism," without directly turning to suppression of the struggle of workers' and rural poor and landless?

Didn't happen in Chile in 1973. Didn't happen in Argentina with Peron 1, Peron 2, or Peron 3. Hasn't happened in Argentina with the Kirchners. How about South Africa? Angola? Vietnam? China?

Look, this myth of a patriotic national/petit bourgeoisie as being a support for some sort of approximation of social revolution is bullshit. What allowed, covered, protected the revolts in Cuba, Vietnam, etc? It sure wasn't a patriotic national/petit bourgeoisie... it was the former Soviet Union.

And that's gone..and it was gone for all practical purposes after 1985. So forget it. If you're looking to forestall and prevent a proletarian revolution, which most undoubtedly DNZ is, you'll need to find a different sponsor as the fSU went out of business.

[Devrim]

In many cases the peasantry and rural petit-bourgeoisie alone outnumber the proletariat. In others they and the urban petit-bourgeoisie outnumber the proletariat. Post #57 above explains the situation of the urban petit-bourgeoisie. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/progressive-instances-militarized-t162086/index.html?p=2266160)

Which doesn't mean that there are 'huge numbers of urban petit-bourgeoisie'. It would just mean that the numbers of peasants and proletarians are about the same and it just tips the balance.

Please give us an example of somewhere where these 'huge numbers of urban petit-bourgeoisie' outnumber the working class.

Devrim

[Comrade-Z]

OMG, I had a huge post written out and hit "post," and it didn't go through, and I didn't copy it...crap...gotta do this again...


Really? Can you provide evidence of a "national/petit bourgeoisie" supporting this version of "state-capitalism," without directly turning to suppression of the struggle of workers' and rural poor and landless?

No, because state-capitalism, like any sort of capitalism, is naturally going to entail suppression of workers' and rural poor struggles.


Didn't happen in Chile in 1973.

Agreed. The petit-bourgeoisie preferred U.S.-backed capitalism to native state-capitalism.


Didn't happen in Argentina with Peron 1, Peron 2, or Peron 3.

In the case of Peron 1, I'd disagree. This is precisely a case of nationalist limited-state-capitalism being supported by the petit-bourgeoisie.


Hasn't happened in Argentina with the Kirchners.

Huh? Argentina is a modern capitalist country now. What does the petit-bourgeoisie there have to gain from a nationalist state-capitalist regime nowadays? Nothing. No landed aristocracy or foreign stranglehold to remove.


How about South Africa? Angola?

I confess total ignorance about these cases.


Vietnam?

Perhaps you've never heard of the VNQDD?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Nam_Quoc_Dan_Dang
It was a nationalist, state-capitalist ("socialist"), anti-communist, but Leninist (as in democratic-centralist) party whose organizational methods were partly inspired by "What Is To Be Done?" which fit the conspiratorial conditions of French colonial Indochina well. It was supported by the nationalist portion of the petit-bourgeoisie. And even the communists were always more nationalist first and "communist" second. They appealed to some petit-bourgeois after the VNQDD disintegrated.


China?

What do you think the Kuomintang was? Granted, after it had come under the aegis of U.S. imperialism and had moved to Taiwan, it dropped the state-capitalism ("socialism"), but early on it was more like the VNQDD...or Deng Xiaoping's CPC. And if it had ended up as the ruling government for an independent mainland China, it would have stayed with the state-capitalism...because that's what it takes for a new capitalist country in this epoch of already established capitalist imperialist powers to undergo thorough capitalist development. (Otherwise you end up with a neo-colony that has a developed raw material export sector (bananas, oil, coca, opium) and pretty much nothing else).

I could also point to Bela Kun's Hungary as an example of a short-lived nationalist state-capitalist regime initially supported by the petit-bourgeoisie. Pretty much everyone supported Kun's regime initially because they hoped that he would be able to get help from the Soviet Union in order to preserve the territorial integrity of Hungary in the face of Romania and the Allies...but the Soviet Union more than had its hands full already, so once it became apparent that this was a pipe-dream, and that Kun's regime would not serve as a suitable vehicle for nationalist aspirations, the petit-bourgeoisie turned against Kun.

Of course, the Soviet Union under NEP is the best example of a state-capitalist regime supported by the petit-bourgeois kulak peasantry and nepmen.

Finally, I'd point to Nazi Germany as an obvious nationalist state-capitalist regime supported by the petit-bourgeoisie. However, there are some peculiar aspects of Nazi Germany that exclude it as a case of progressive nationalist state-capitalism:
*Working class rule was arguably possible in 1930s Germany, in which case supporting state-capitalism, like any capitalism, was strictly reactionary.
*Out of any context, the Treaty of Versailles could be considered imperialist, and thus any party calling for the repeal of the Treaty of Versailles could be called anti-imperialist, but in the context of Germany having been an imperialist power during WWI and having been disproportionately responsible for starting WWI, it's harder to make this judgment.
*The Nazis did not stop at just repealing the Treaty of Versailles, but went on to become once again a rapacious imperialist power themselves.

Now, where does this model of a nationalist state-capitalism supported in part by the petit-bourgeoisie NOT apply? Where is it strictly a reactionary proposal? Where is working class rule currently possible?
*The advanced capitalist countries (U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Australia, Japan)
*Eastern Europe
*The Balkan countries, including Greece
*Turkey
*Russia
*Egypt
*Iran
*The "East Asian Tigers"
*South Africa
*Brazil
*Argentina
*Chile

Where might this model of a nationalist state-capitalist regime supported in part by the petit-bourgeoisie still have a progressive influence (despite the inevitable concomitant repression of workers entailed by any type of capitalist development)? Pretty much any other major country not mentioned above.

[Die Neue Zeit]

No, because state-capitalism, like any sort of capitalism, is naturally going to entail suppression of workers' and rural poor struggles.

Why? I stated that working-class politico-ideological independence is possible within a TWCS context, so are you referring instead to sectional economic struggles, whether mere labour disputes or isolated rural poor actions?

Would the TWCS adoption of Germany's Co-Determination and Venezuela's Co-Management be a form of suppressing "worker struggles"?


It sure wasn't a patriotic national/petit bourgeoisie... it was the former Soviet Union.

And that's gone..and it was gone for all practical purposes after 1985. So forget it. If you're looking to forestall and prevent a proletarian revolution, which most undoubtedly DNZ is, you'll need to find a different sponsor as the fSU went out of business.

So you're discounting the possibility of, say, the Mexican Revolution in 1911 to yield a Third World Caesarean Socialist regime (even though it didn't)? No foreign sponsors there.

[ZeroNowhere]

It's just creepy how much you enjoy stalking one user and making sure you're always the first to comment on their thread.
It's not like they're hard to find.

[S.Artesian]

So you're discounting the possibility of, say, the Mexican Revolution in 1911 to yield a Third World Caesarean Socialist regime (even though it didn't)? No foreign sponsors there.


Yeah, exactly. That's the point of class society. Mexico is precisely the case in point. Remember Zapata and Villa took Mexico City, but couldn't wait to get out of there.

Obregon? Probably the greatest of the Constitutionalists was nowhere close to being a "Caesar" or a socialist.


What do you think the Kuomintang was?

Hilarious, on a par with DNZ's stupidity re the Mexican Revolution. I know exactly what the Kuomintang were-- enemies of the proletariat, unable to take state power and change any of the production relations; unable to do away the archaic relations of rural production.

How's that foot feel, how do those feet feel? You guys done shooting yourselves there yet?

[Jose Gracchus]

I think the most important note was made by S. Artesian early: each and every single one of the psuedo-'socialist' autarchic development/anti-imperialist regimes was built as a fundamental prerequisite, on the suppression of the proletariat as a class-for-itself, and generally on functionally preventing the working-class from organizing itself in a revolutionary manner, much less achieving any political-ideological programmatic independence from other classes and the state, if they are able to mount any organizations at all (viz. the total social and political atomisation of the Soviet workers throughout the USSR's existence, particularly after the OGPU successfully destroyed the last workers' political organizations in the mid-1920s, and the near-total atomisation under Mao's China--with brief respite during the late Cultural Revolution in 1967-69--, ditto under Castroite Cuba, ad nauseum).

If there's one thing that class-collaborationist populism/caudillismo and Stalinism have in common is that they are not very good at building nationally viable and useful industrial complexes, but they are very, very good at preventing proletarian revolution, and even its most preliminary antecedents.

DNZ bizarrely splits this tendency from the rest of the baggage, as assertion, based on nothing whatsoever save his own authority. He deludes that something like Lassalle's "people's state" (the truth of which is, we have lived under the ideological shadow of Lassalle's reactionary populism, from Stalin in Moscow to Peron in Buenos Aires) would be possible while preserving any substantial working-class autonomy and independence. The truth is, any substantial industrialization will have as its first order of business: the total subordination of the proletariat to the ends of production.

DNZ sucks up forum space to basically hock his nightly wish-fantasies and role-playing daydreams.

[RED DAVE]

Third World Caesarean Socialist regimeOnly a stalinist would conceive of such a thing as possible.

For the millionth time, socialism is based on workers control of industry from below. This fantasy of DNZ's precludes this.

RED DAVE

[Comrade-Z]

Hilarious, on a par with DNZ's stupidity re the Mexican Revolution. I know exactly what the Kuomintang were-- enemies of the proletariat, unable to take state power and change any of the production relations; unable to do away the archaic relations of rural production.

Of course they were enemies of the proletariat, as any party aspiring to power in a pre-capitalist country by pushing for capitalism, or limited state-capitalism, must be to a certain extent.

If they were unable to update any of the production relations to be more compatible with capitalism (such as doing away with archaic relations of rural production), that's because they made a strategic decision at some point to ditch the nationalist state-capitalism and ally with U.S. imperialism. They thought that would give them a better shot at getting into power. They were wrong.


I think the most important note was made by S. Artesian early: each and every single one of the psuedo-'socialist' autarchic development/anti-imperialist regimes was built as a fundamental prerequisite, on the suppression of the proletariat as a class-for-itself, and generally on functionally preventing the working-class from organizing itself in a revolutionary manner, much less achieving any political-ideological programmatic independence from other classes and the state, if they are able to mount any organizations at all (viz. the total social and political atomisation of the Soviet workers throughout the USSR's existence, particularly after the OGPU successfully destroyed the last workers' political organizations in the mid-1920s, and the near-total atomisation under Mao's China--with brief respite during the late Cultural Revolution in 1967-69--, ditto under Castroite Cuba, ad nauseum).

This is where I part ways with DNZ, who seems to think that there's a possible type of nationalist state-capitalism that is not going to exploit and suppress workers and communism. I disagree. Nationalist state-capitalism ("state-socialism") does not lead from capitalism to communism. It leads from under-developed capitalism to developed capitalism. A second, purely working class revolution is always going to be needed, once this state-capitalism has developed the means of production enough, against this state-capitalism (or the subsequent developed capitalism that it gives birth to) and for communism and working class rule.

I'm merely making the point, I guess, that in the modern era of worldwide imperial capitalism, we aren't going to have any more bourgeois revolutions that look like 1789, with classical liberal rhetoric. They are all going to look more like Petrograd 1917, and they are all going to be waving red flags and ushering in state-capitalism instead of the classical-liberal capitalism with which Marx was more familiar.

[Jose Gracchus]

We are past the era where the bourgeois-national revolution is progressive anymore. Know what is? Proletarian revolution.

[Comrade-Z]

We are past the era where the bourgeois-national revolution is progressive anymore. Know what is? Proletarian revolution.

We are, but what about China, India, and most of Africa?

Actually, I think China is approaching the point, within the next one or two decades, where working class rule might be possible. The urban working class is ballooning at the expense of the peasantry. I think China just recently crossed the threshold where more than 50% of the population lived in urban areas. In China, nationalist state-capitalism's time is running out. Ask yourself if the Communist Party is a suitable forum in which to manage the intra-class disputes of a modern capitalist class (one yearning for more political and economic "independence") while maintaining the appearance of popular sovereignty. I don't think it is. I think the last days of the USSR showed that quite well. If the capitalist class in Russia had deemed the USSR a suitable forum for its intra-class disputes, it wouldn't have bothered formally overturning it.

[S.Artesian]

We are, but what about China, India, and most of Africa?

Actually, I think China is approaching the point, within the next one or two decades, where working class rule might be possible. The urban working class is ballooning at the expense of the peasantry. I think China just recently crossed the threshold where more than 50% of the population lived in urban areas. In China, nationalist state-capitalism's time is running out. Ask yourself if the Communist Party is a suitable forum in which to manage the intra-class disputes of a modern capitalist class (one yearning for more political and economic "independence") while maintaining the appearance of popular sovereignty. I don't think it is. I think the last days of the USSR showed that quite well. If the capitalist class in Russia had deemed the USSR a suitable forum for its intra-class disputes, it wouldn't have bothered formally overturning it.


China, India, Africa? Well let's look at the record, shall we, of patriotic "petit-bourgeois" and "patriotic" national bourgeois elements. What's that record like in Zimbabwe [with Mugabe]? Egypt [since 1954]. South Africa under the ANC. China under Mao. Unless you want to argue that results of all of these great "patriotic" movements have been the work of "revisionists," we are forced to conclude that no such "alliance," class collaboration, no such nationalism, provides any solution to the conflict between social development and capitalist relations of production.

No matter what numbers you think are involved in the working class in China [and I would argue that the numbers are nowhere as great as people thing they are. What is greater than anyone thinks it is is unemployment], the prospects of the successful revolution have always revolved around the abolition of the existing relations of rural production. They still do. And that abolition requires more than the actions of the Chinese proletariat, and certainly something other than an "alliance" with the "patriotic" petit-bourgeoisie. The alliance required is that with the proletariat of the advanced countries.

[Comrade-Z]

China, India, Africa? Well let's look at the record, shall we, of patriotic "petit-bourgeois" and "patriotic" national bourgeois elements. What's that record like in Zimbabwe [with Mugabe]? Egypt [since 1954]. South Africa under the ANC. China under Mao. Unless you want to argue that results of all of these great "patriotic" movements have been the work of "revisionists," we are forced to conclude that no such "alliance," class collaboration, no such nationalism, provides any solution to the conflict between social development and capitalist relations of production.

Has not China developed extremely quickly? Is it not catching up to the point where it will have a working class that can contemporaneously participate with working class revolution in the advanced capitalist countries? That's all I expect from nationalist state-capitalism supported (temporarily) by the petit-bourgeoisie. I don't expect such a system to solve "the conflict between social development and capitalist relations of production," if by "social development" you mean better conditions for the working class in the short-term preceding the necessary second communist revolution.


The alliance required is that with the proletariat of the advanced countries.

How exactly will alliance with the proletariat of the advanced capitalist countries hasten the abolition of backward relations of rural production? I'm not asking this combatively. I honestly want to know.

Are you suggesting that, if China continued its existing trajectory, agribusiness concentration and the proletarianization of the existing agricultural producers will not occur like it has occurred in the advanced capitalist countries?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think the most important note was made by S. Artesian early: each and every single one of the psuedo-'socialist' autarchic development/anti-imperialist regimes was built as a fundamental prerequisite, on the suppression of the proletariat as a class-for-itself, and generally on functionally preventing the working-class from organizing itself in a revolutionary manner, much less achieving any political-ideological programmatic independence from other classes and the state, if they are able to mount any organizations at all (viz. the total social and political atomisation of the Soviet workers throughout the USSR's existence, particularly after the OGPU successfully destroyed the last workers' political organizations in the mid-1920s, and the near-total atomisation under Mao's China--with brief respite during the late Cultural Revolution in 1967-69--, ditto under Castroite Cuba, ad nauseum).

If there's one thing that class-collaborationist populism/caudillismo and Stalinism have in common is that they are not very good at building nationally viable and useful industrial complexes, but they are very, very good at preventing proletarian revolution, and even its most preliminary antecedents.

So what about the politico-ideological independence achieved by the German working class despite the repression of Bismarck and Co.? All I am saying is that, if that can be achieved under a hostile strongman, then it can certainly be achieved by a proletarian demographic minority under a more sympathetic regime.


Unless you want to argue that results of all of these great "patriotic" movements have been the work of "revisionists," we are forced to conclude that no such "alliance," class collaboration, no such nationalism, provides any solution to the conflict between social development and capitalist relations of production.

So says the guy who's got blatant double-think re. left parties of the peasantry and urban "national" petit-bourgeoisie taking over (http://www.revleft.com/vb/relevance-permanent-revolution-t161112/index.html?p=2233772) (in the form of the Left SRs and peasant soviets), something which Trotsky opposed in pressing on with the possibility of "civil war with the peasantry." :rolleyes:

[S.Artesian]

Has not China developed extremely quickly? Is it not catching up to the point where it will have a working class that can contemporaneously participate with working class revolution in the advanced capitalist countries? That's all I expect from nationalist state-capitalism supported (temporarily) by the petit-bourgeoisie. I don't expect such a system to solve "the conflict between social development and capitalist relations of production," if by "social development" you mean better conditions for the working class in the short-term preceding the necessary second communist revolution.

But not through any such "patriotism," but rather by giving itself over to advanced capitalist investment. Over a trillion dollars in FDI has been pumped into China. So tell me how the "patriotic" petit/national bourgeoisie fit in? How "progressive" they are. They are progressive to the extent that the world markets allow them to be.

For the record, China has had a working class that could contemporaneously participate with working class revolution in the advanced countries since 1927 and before.




How exactly will alliance with the proletariat of the advanced capitalist countries hasten the abolition of backward relations of rural production? I'm not asking this combatively. I honestly want to know.

I'll honestly tell you: You will be able to increase the productivity of labor through the introduction of advanced techniques, rather than drive down the productivity of labor in agriculture [and industry] through the forcible dispossession, expropriation, and pulverization of the peasantry as occurred in the first 5 year plan in fSU. And note to DNZ, no that plan did not amount to primitive socialist accumulation, as the productivity of agriculture declined. Primitive? Most definitely. Socialist? Definitely not. Accumulation? Not in the slightest, production declined. Assets were destroyed.


Are you suggesting that, if China continued its existing trajectory, agribusiness concentration and the proletarianization of the existing agricultural producers will not occur like it has occurred in the advanced capitalist countries?


I'm suggesting of course that China cannot continue its existing trajectory, as Russia couldn't in 1916. The existing trajectory will take China into either proletarian revolution or into an infinitely more violent preemptive counterrevolution, with the result if this latter occurs of, not the proletarianization of the class existing agricultural producers, but rather the impoverishment and marginalization of millions of agricultural producers who will not be able to subsist as agricultural laborers and will be unable to find employment in industry, transportation, services, etc.

The "existing trajectory" of China depends on the continued profitability of the movement of capital into China, the availability of such capital, and the profitability of production in the advanced countries. The "global South" cannot substitute for the advanced countries in world trade. Mexico, Brazil, Argentina already have taken steps to protect themselves from China's exports.

So... just as the advanced countries could not stay on their "post 2001-2003 recession" trajectory, China will not be able to stay on its "post 2008 overlending stimulus" trajectory.

[RED DAVE]

So what about the politico-ideological independence achieved by the German working class despite the repression of Bismarck and Co.? All I am saying is that, if that can be achieved under a hostile strongman, then it can certainly be achieved by a proletarian demographic minority under a more sympathetic regime.Get off it, social democrat ('cause that's what you are). The "politico-ideological independence achieved by the German working class" and touted by the SPD was a substitute for revolutionary politics and did not keep the party from selling about massively.

You keep bringing up the party that engaged in one of the great sell-outs of history as an ideal in the face of this massive historical fact. It's reasonable to believe that you approve of the sell-out.

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

And note to DNZ, no that plan did not amount to primitive socialist accumulation, as the productivity of agriculture declined. Primitive? Most definitely. Socialist? Definitely not. Accumulation? Not in the slightest, production declined. Assets were destroyed.

The accumulation occurred with respect to the import of industrial equipment. The wanton destruction of food produce doesn't count as destruction of long-term assets, which is what I interpret your last sentence to refer to.

[S.Artesian]

Productivity declined in industry also. That's the point.

[Jose Gracchus]

^ That from Nove?

[S.Artesian]

Yes, that's correct.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Productivity declined in industry also. That's the point.

There still was accumulation. The point was effectiveness over efficiency. Just because productivity can decline doesn't mean that it necessarily means that overall production must decline.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

You guys ever read Theda Skocpol?
Just asking...


What does her American focus have to do with Third World development?

Guess that answers my question. I was going to bring up Körner and Duczynska, but since you probably haven't read those either...

[Die Neue Zeit]

What does her American focus have to do with Third World development? :confused:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Get off it, social democrat ('cause that's what you are). The "politico-ideological independence achieved by the German working class" and touted by the SPD was a substitute for revolutionary politics and did not keep the party from selling about massively.

You keep bringing up the party that engaged in one of the great sell-outs of history as an ideal in the face of this massive historical fact. It's reasonable to believe that you approve of the sell-out.

It was revolutionary politics, a substitute for Mass Strike and related Direct Action fetishes posing as "revolutionary politics" throughout much of the left today. I already mentioned the SPD's membership collapse after the vote for war credits and also the emergence of the USPD. The SPD paid a steep price for its sellout.

Proletarian demographic minorities can achieve politico-ideological independence even within a Third World Caesarean Socialist regime.

[S.Artesian]

Proletarian demographic minorities can achieve politico-ideological independence even within a Third World Caesarean Socialist regime.

Where? When? Provide an example of this taking place anywhere anytime in the 20th or 21st century.

[Jose Gracchus]

Yes, indeed. Once more, DNZ implicitly thinks history would have been different had only his potpurri of political detritus was available to the masses and minds of the past.

As for Theda Skocpol, I have read some of States and Social Revolutions. I know she is a big proponent of the implicit, if not very organized or conscious, major role that peasant rebellions against the prevailing socioeconomic and state political order, underpinning social and economic institutions in the rural-agricultural economy, has in thoroughgoing social revolutions. She is also a major proponent of considering the state as an autonomous social actor. She breaks from and criticizes most Marxist views in several ways. Where were you going with her, Hoipolloi?

[promethean]

It was revolutionary politics, a substitute for Mass Strike and related Direct Action fetishes posing as "revolutionary politics" throughout much of the left today. I already mentioned the SPD's membership collapse after the vote for war credits and also the emergence of the USPD. The SPD paid a steep price for its sellout.

Proletarian demographic minorities can achieve politico-ideological independence even within a Third World Caesarean Socialist regime.
Militarism and militarized cultures are often seen in countries where state capitalism existed. This was the case in every state created by coups by armies of national liberation and Stalinism. None of these economies were in any way progressive for the proletariat of those countries. In any case, any sort of independence is also impossible without considering the economic factor, which is what the militarism would generally be used for: to extract more with the threat of force. This forum seems to have a lot of nonsensical threads without any backing evidence at all.

[Die Neue Zeit]

In any case, any sort of independence is also impossible without considering the economic factor, which is what the militarism would generally be used for: to extract more with the threat of force.

Are you suggesting that economic independence for the working class is possible "this side" of revolution? Because that's the same illusion promoted by those preaching mass cooperativism.

[promethean]

Are you suggesting that economic independence for the working class is possible "this side" of revolution? Because that's the same illusion promoted by those preaching mass cooperativism.
No, I am not.